


If You Aren't In Over Your Head, How Do You Know How Tall You Are?

by AfflictedwithAlliteration



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AU of AU's, Angst, Attempted Worldbuilding, Dark-fic, Drugs, Mafiafell-AU, Mafiafellswap-AU, Mafiaswap-AU, Mafiatale-AU, Minor Character Death, Murder, Post-Undertale Neutral Route, Reader-Insert, Reverse Harem, Romance, Strong Language, depictions of torture, gang rivalry, gender-neutral, hidden fluff, lies and manipulation, polymory, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:22:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24048892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AfflictedwithAlliteration/pseuds/AfflictedwithAlliteration
Summary: When the monsters broke the surface, the resulting magical backlash destroyed life as any human knew it. The factions that grew out of the resulting feud, once protectors, became little more than gangs vying for territory and resources in rapidly decaying cities. Your city is no different, and you need out before you become just another body buried in a ghost town. But entering someone else's territory is easier said than done, and if you want to survive you need to make a deal with every devil who crosses your path.
Relationships: Papyrus (Undertale)/Reader, Sans (Undertale)/Reader
Comments: 35
Kudos: 93





	1. Chapter I

It’s beautiful in a way.

Rich greens, ripping apart concrete like it’s playdough. A picturesque dystopia that filmmakers could only dream to replicate. Chunks of debris threatening to fall, a final pathetic act of defiance halted by the plant matter holding it in a death grip, strangle holding any thoughts of freedom. 

As you lean against it, chest heaving, you think it’s fitting. 

The savage imagery proves just how stupid your actions had been. If the stomping of feet hadn’t already done that. Just like the building, your last bits of resistance would be futile but the thought of getting caught made you move. There was no time to check your surroundings anymore, you had to run. Pushing off, you strained yourself, wishing you could put Olympic runners to shame. 

Only thirty feet to go.

You weren’t sure what burned more, your legs or your throat. It was painful to gasp in each lungful of air; each pull blurred your vision. Every time it did, the blur thrust the daydream of not dying into it. 

The sound of bullets behind you was quick to put an end to that. 

A sharp, sudden, noisy reminder that you were not an Olympic sprinter. You were also not bullet proof. But you knew if you stopped, you wouldn’t be able to make your legs move again, it was pure determination at this point. It shouldn’t have been possible for your heart to beat any faster, but it did, maybe you’d get lucky and die from cardiac arrest. Anything that wasn’t being caught or a bullet to the leg.

But you wouldn’t be so lucky. 

Pumping your arms harder, like that would make you faster, you closed your eyes and threw yourself forward. A lack of vision was probably not the best choice but the sweat leaking into your eyes wasn’t making your sight any clearer. But it was the first sign of giving up, however subconscious, and your body took note. 

The dust in your mouth was the most you’d eaten in four days, the sweat dripping over your lips the closest to water you had in almost two. Your body was running on shutdown mode, knees trembling, arms flagging, and the only reason you didn’t collapse in the dirt was an arm around your waist. 

Just like that, you let the darkness take you.

* * *

When you opened your eyes again, the first sight that greeted you were unfamiliar faces. The drab grey of a uniform blending in with the walls behind them. It was proof of their power that they didn’t bother to restrain you in anyway.

“Name?”

You lick your lips, but your tongue was even drier, skin ripping across skin without sound. The silence is all it takes for the butt of a gun to whip across your shoulder, forcing something like the cry of dying animal but it’s enough for a moment.

“Age?”

This time you can’t answer even if you wanted to, it feels like you’ve swallowed super glue and cayenne peppers. 

“Never mind, can you stand?”

That you can do. Even if your legs scream in protest, you make them move. Or try to. The flat gazes of people hold no surprise when you can only half crawl across the floor. It’s perfect though, so long as you can move, they’ll sell you. It would give you a chance.

“Put them with the rest. Tell him we need thirty cases for the lot, anything less and it’s no dice.”

They’re rough when they haul you up, but you let them manhandle you. There’s no reason to struggle or waste your strength when they were going to drag you through the rubble of the halls regardless. The smart thing to do would be to check your surroundings, but one floor of wreckage looked the same as another, and so long as the uniforms were there you wouldn’t get far. 

And you’re right.

The Greys throw you into the piles of bodies in a new room, a few groans echoing when you hit but no one has the energy to really care. You don’t even bother to move, staying flopped across where you’ve landed, gaze locked on the ceiling. It can’t really be called that anymore. It’s mostly empty space and a clear view of the night sky, dark and endless. So much darker than when streetlights had lit the corner of every sky scrapper. You think maybe this is why people had always revered and feared it so much. 

Now it’s comforting because you can picture it swallowing the mess the world had become. The cover of darkness turning everything into shadows until you can’t see how ruined it really is, just outlines of the past. 

You feel strangely poetic, and you can only blame the dehydration and malnutrition. You barely move when the body underneath you finally dredged up the strength to shove you off, rolling you so the sky leaves your vision and the door opening fills it.

A flashlight in your eyes, bright and sudden enough to hide the person from view but you recognize at least one voice, if not the new one.

“Twelve. As promised, even left you an extra” There is the faintest image of smoke, winding through the beam of light, the smaller light of a real live cigarette bouncing as they flick the ashes off. But there’s no answer, just another line of smoke disturbing the light. “ _Well?_ ”

“You in a rush, sweetheart?”

“I’d like to be done this sometime today, monster. No games.”

“That’s too bad, I happen to be real fond of games.”

“And I happen to be fond of sleep. Are we doing this or not?”

The cigarette light goes out first but not without the telling several moments of dragged out silence. “Pack them up. Cases are in the Deadzone.”

“Done.” Too eager, too quick and you don’t blame them but even you wince at the chuckle that escapes the monster.

The flashlight goes out next right before the world erupts into motion, the Grey soldiers toting all of you out like bags of trash. It’s all quick and efficient, one minute you’re in the room, the next you’re outside. You try to urge your body. Reminding it that the time is now. This was the moment but—

You can’t move. 

It’s like you’re being pinned. A butterfly stuck in a corkboard, and that’s what makes you notice the glow. 

Magic.

You try to move your limbs anyway, shocks of pain running down your entire body when you do. It shakes you, and if you could do more than whimper your body would arch off the ground from the shock of it.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

It’s wishful thinking he isn’t talking to you. 

Before, there had been the glow of flashlights and the headlights of cars careening away in the distance but now you can only make out whatever the moon shows you. That and glowing eyes of some sort of monster. Eyes that are focused on your own. 

“WELL, IF YOU DID AS I ASKED MAYBE THEY WOULDN’T STRUGGLE SO MUCH.”

“I’m not knocking out every human, Sweets.”

“BUT IT WOULD BE SO MUCH EASIER TO TRANSPORT THEM.”

“Whaddya worried ‘bout? Ya ain’t the one heffin’ the bastards ‘cross the fuckin’ void.”

“YOU COMPLAIN A LOT FOR SOMEONE WHO HASN’T DONE A THING SO FAR.”

“Bite me, ya insufferable know-it-all.”

“Knock it off.” The first one you’d heard steps forward, close enough to haul you up by the arm with the glow of magic still keeping you in place. He grabs the scruff of three more humans. “Three a piece, and if I hear about anything more about it you can take it up with Rabid on your own time.”

“Fuck off, ya—”

The words are cutoff as the world falls away, true darkness blocking your vision for what feels like forever and the time it takes to blink. If there were anything in your stomach, it’d be at the monster’s feet. Something like a cough and a heave slips out before the magic finally drops you in a brightly lit room. It’s too bright, and you squint, eyes lolling until they land on the figure that transported you. 

A skeleton. 

Your heart clenches because you know what it means to see one of them. Of all monsters for you to get sold to, it was _them_.

It would have been better to get shot. The room is sparsely furnished and there aren’t many doors you can see through the strain of adjustment to the light.

“Whatever you think your gonna do, don’t.”

His voice is even, and it’s only now that you realize you’ve automatically angled yourself to the nearest exit. A window. Judging by the view you wouldn’t survive a fall, but—

“I said _don’t._ ”

He’s in front of you again, his entire frame filling and blocking the point of exit. Instinct makes you fall back, legs giving out when you trip over the other people hauled with you. 

“Take them to Gerson to sell.”

His gaze hasn’t left you as he speaks. You find it hard to tear your own away, but you do as a skeletal arm lifts you with ease, and you find yourself rounded up like a sack of potatoes. A second set of bright eyes meeting your own curiously. 

“AND THIS ONE, TOO?”

“…no. Not yet. Leave it.” The skeleton looks away from you and you can’t make out his expression from the angle, but you can make out the short ones. “Don’t gimme that look. I’m not doing nothing. Just gotta check.”

“I WILL BE BACK SHORTLY.”

You are dropped as quickly as you had been picked up and now it’s only the two of you. 

His gaze flicks across you and makes your skin crawl but you don’t move. You had thought you’d at least have the night to try and muster up energy. Finally, he squats down, reaching out to grab you chin and tilting you this way and that. 

“Open up.”

It’s such a common command you do and his finger probes for a minute before he releases you and steps back, wiping his fingers off on his pants. 

“You aren’t sick.”

Your heart skips a beat. That wasn’t a real question and he didn’t seem to expect an answer and after a minute he snaps and there’s water in his hand. You would salivate if you could and he drinks near the whole glass, keeping his eyes locked on you before handing it to you. It’s hardly a sip left. 

“Don’t throw it up.”

Greedily you snatch the cup and down the last bits. It’s not nearly enough but the swirling in your stomach says otherwise. 

“I mean it, you’ll clean it.”

“I won’t.”

The sound of your own voice seems to startle you both for a moment but it’s enough to at least unglue your lips and spit the words out. He says nothing but watches you with an even stronger intensity for a moment before calling out to someone behind you. Your head whips around in shock, seeing the same tall skeleton as before. 

“How many were on the list?”

“TWELVE. ALL DROPPED OFF AND ACCOUNTED FOR.”

“Call Vice.”

There is a such a long silence between the two you think the taller is ignoring the order, you gaze flicking between the two. The last thing you want is to be trapped between to pissy monsters but finally the shorter sighs.

“I’ll do it myself, watch them.”

The taller beams as the shorter is just…gone. Like he’d never been there at all, and that’s all it takes for you to launch yourself at the window. You don’t even really make it to full upright position before there’s a firm hand collaring you, literally. Your feet don’t touch the ground as he hefts you up and tosses you like a ragdoll into the nearest chair. 

“SIT STILL, PLEASE.”

You hadn’t even heard him move, and he barely seems to have moved at all from his position at the door, bright smile in place like nothing just happened. A litany of curses runs through your head as you begin to realize how truly fucked you are. There’s plenty of possibilities, too many, that the skeleton mob could want you for but none of them are good if they aren’t outright killing you.

“What’d they do?”

The voice startles you, the shorter skeleton back with another tall one and you frown. Gaze moving from the smiling one in the doorway and this new one. They are almost identical, and it distracts you for a moment before the short one is squatted in front of you again

“NOTHING WORTH WORRYING ABOUT.”

“…whatever you say.” He looks away from them to you. His expression is unreadable even with a smile. His sockets empty of the earlier lights. “Got a proposition for you.”

You wait for more but there’s none, and you realize you can actually say no. Well, probably but that didn’t mean they would accept the answer. You think of the humans who’d done much the same, imagining yourself still staring up at the hole in the ceiling. You let your head fall back, both in acceptance and anything to escape the expression on his face. 

“What is it?” The words are like gargling nails, voice still rough, and throat drying out again once more. 

“We’ll let you go back to a town, safe and sound.” You lift you head to stare at him, unimpressed and unamused, and his lights return, smile widening a bit. 

“Not for free.”

“Nothing free anywhere, kid.”

You struggled to spit out words for a moment until he pressed another cup of water into your hands, this one not anymore full than the last. But you take it just as eagerly then lick your lips. 

“I’m not part of the groups, I don’t know anything.”

The smile doesn’t fall though the lights shrink. 

“Didn’t ask you, did I?”

“Then what.”

You should be more cautious, but your panic makes you snap; you chide yourself mentally but you’d rather he either off you or get to the point. 

“Vice will come visit you when he needs you. You tell him whatever he asks you about.”

“What if I don’t know?”

“Then you best learn it, button.” The term makes you stiffen, gaze jumping to the new voice, drawled from where the skeleton is leaning. You’d almost forgotten he was there, silent and quiet, large but entirely invisible in the near empty room. It hadn’t been a threat, just fact, and that’s probably why you tighten your grip on the glass. Anything to still the sudden shake of your hands. You can fill in the blanks even if you don’t have the stomach to keep up the act of strength. Your heart is beating faster than when you’d been running. Fast enough to choke the life out of you but you can't help but think of falling buildings.

Of faces you are half making up, their memories long gone.

Of water to drink.

Of a roof.

Of the smell of room, solid and grounding. 

Of voices calling out more numbers. 

Of pits of bodies.

Of the sound of bullets.

Of food. 

Of not dying.

The monster smiles when you hand him the cup and hold out your hand, closing your eyes against the weight you put in their gazes. Against the reflection of yourself in the smooth shiny surfaces around you. Abruptly your heart stills, feeling bone against skin with a morbid finality as you force out the word from behind clenched teeth. 

“…deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this me making a new story when I haven’t finished others? Yes, yes it is. This is obviously not canon to any of these verses, I am just taking the concepts and entirely bastardizing them, as I do. 
> 
> Here is a nickname key:
> 
> Sans/Papyrus
> 
> Mafiatale= Shade/Sweets
> 
> Mafiafelltale= Slugger/Cap
> 
> Mafiaswaptale= Scratch/Vice
> 
> Mafiafellswaptale= Solon/Rabid
> 
> We are in for a bumpy ride folks, mind them tags ya’ll. Plug for my [tumblr](http://howwhenwhatwherewho.tumblr.com/) that is mostly reblogs but always open for questions!


	2. Chapter II

“You heard them, get them cleaned up and out.” He drops your hand and steps back, nodding his head. “Pleasure doing business with you, kid.”

Then he’s gone. 

For a second, only one, you glance at the window again but one of the tall skeletons has you hefted up as if you weigh nothing.

“A BATH FIRST, DON’T HUMANS BATHE ANYMORE?”

Your stomach and eyes protested the sudden upheaval. The bit of water swishing around in your gut dangerously as he tossed you over his shoulder that you missed that he was talking to you entirely until the other spoke. 

“Think you made it sick.”

“IN THAT CASE I APOLOGIZE BUT WE CAN’T BE TO CAREFUL AND YOU’VE SHOWN POOR JUDGEMENT ALREADY.”

He said it so cheerfully it would have been easy to miss the warning, but it was all you could focus on aside from the plus carpet he hauled you down. 

It was so different than your encampment. 

A prisoner’s march but in something like splendor because if the Grey halls had been the ruins of the past, the monster’s halls were a tribute to it.

Full solid walls, and shimmering windows blinding you as you bounced on his shoulder while he walked. Working lights, not scent of decay or earth, just the smell of clean wood and sparse polished surfaces. But even those weren’t enough to distract your stomach.

“I’m…” you heaved a bit. “puke.”

It’s all you could get out as his armor jostled up under your ribs painfully, a short gasp of pain escaping. 

“PLEASE DON’T WE ARE ALMOST THERE.”

You swallowed thickly, tongue feeling swollen as your stomach swelled towards your throat but nodded as if he could see you.

“Maybe try carrying it different?”

“NO. IT WOULD EXPOSE MY FACE TO TREACHERY.”

“Then your ass is about to get covered in chunks.”

You tried to focus on their words as a distraction, grunting when the skeleton picked up pace. If he thought it was helpful it wasn’t. The bile hit the back of your throat just as he dropped you on the ground, the splatter of liquid barely missing his foot as he jumped back.

“THAT IS WHY YOU DON’T GIVE THEM WATER LIKE THAT. GO GET SOMETHING TO CLEAN IT, I’LL BATHE THEM.”

There is a few more heaves, unable to stop once you’ve started but when you wipe you mouth you lean back and shake your head.

“I can do it myself.”

“UNFORTUNATELY, THAT WASN’T AN OPTION I OFFERED.”

He is beaming, cheery, and he seems genuinely sorry, but he also doesn’t bat an eye when you shove at his hands in protest. Nor does he stop, and for all your flailing you find yourself naked and under actual warm water in less than a minute. It shocks you into stillness, gazing around the bathroom and really seeing it for the first time.

There’s no curtain, they don’t even pretend to give you privacy but it’s a _rea_ l bathroom. A shower, a tub, a sink, a toilet. Clean plain tiles line nearly every surface and if the water is any indication, working plumbing. You’re so distracted, you don’t even protest when he begins to scrub you. Efficient, and so quick you miss the water when it turns off.

But there isn’t even time to shiver before he’s toweling you off then shoving you into clothes. The whole process probably took less than ten minutes, leaving you reeling and staring up at the self-satisfied grinning skeleton.

“THEY’RE ALL YOURS. THOUGH I WANT IT ON RECORD THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA. GOOD LUCK, HUAMN. YOU WILL NEED IT.”

He turns and stride out, words and actions leaving you floundering before the warning truly hits you. You swallow.

Right.

You had agreed to things in exchange for this. You’d need a lot of luck. You turn to the other skeleton, Vice, you think dazedly. He gives you a once over then holds out a hand, expression unreadable behind the light billow of smoke. 

“You’ll need that.”

A deceivingly innocent red band drops into your hand.

You drop it like its fire, stumbling back in an effort to get away from it.

“No!”

“Didn’t ask if you wanted it, said you’ll need it.” He stubs out his smoke in the sink then picks it up with an easy sweep of his arm, his other hand grabbing yours in a grip strong enough to break bones. “It’s this or you get sold, your choice.”

“Is it real?”

He says nothing as he stares down at you. Without the smoke clouding his features you almost think he pities you as he nods. You shiver. There is only one way to get a Red bracelet if you aren’t born in a settlement. Bile rises for an entirely different reason, but you look away, the only acceptance you can give. 

The skeleton is mercifully quick, snapping it on before you can change your mind or think too much. It doesn’t stop the yelp of pain as the needles burrow into your flesh, the thin screen across it lighting up in recognition, beeping happily as it takes the sample of your blood. He takes a minute to check it then grips your arm even tighter.

“This doesn’t come off, understand?”

“…yes.”

He grabs another towel and dabs a few bits of blood off before yanking you into him.

There’s no warning before the same sensation as before sucker punches you in the gut. Your world seems to shrink in on itself, nearly sending you to your knees before solid ground is under you again. Vice gives you a moment to stabilize yourself before he releases you.

“Everything you need is in the bracelet. And a word of advice, button? If you get caught, don’t come back alive.”

“But wha—” 

He’s gone. 

Just you and an empty room in a new settlement. 

Your legs give out.

An actual roof.

An actual room.

An actual bed.

You can hear voices through the thin walls, echoing in tandem with the skittering of your heart. A steady low hum of background noise repeating.

You’re alive.

You’re alive.

You’re alive.

There should be a surge of _something_ , but you only find yourself hungry and tired. It’s much like any other day but better living conditions. But it’s okay.

Elation will come later.

It has to.

For now, you drag yourself across the floor, ruining the bath you’d only just taken on the less than maintained floors then collapse on the covers of the bed.

At least you had tomorrow.

Because you’re still alive.

* * *

It takes two days for him to come back.

Leaving you with two days to figure out where the hell you are.

A Red settlement, and it’s typical of any you’d ever passed through when the Greys were on the move. You itch to leave but the bracelet is heavier than chains against your wrist. No point in leaving just to die. You could wait.

And though you’d like to be fascinated by the beauty of a semi-functioning city, you’re too busy being focused on the settlement. Every building. By anything you can try to rationalize as ‘important’. 

There has to be something they want that you can give them.

Something that doesn’t require questions.

Because the implications of how easily he’d dropped you in the settlement, how they got the bracelet were enough to make you feel like a caged rat. Pacing your room and the streets for anything and everything. It’s how he found you, pacing the length of your room and idly poking at the bracelet. 

“…looks like you’re working hard.”

You almost scream at him.

Almost.

Instead you just nod, swallowing thickly as your heartbeat picks up, unable to remove your hands from your wrist. He eyes it but says nothing for a moment, then leans against your door. Casual, as if you do this all the time.

And doesn’t say a word.

You grit your teeth and finally speak. 

“What do you want to know?”

“What do you know?”

It has to be a test of some sort, but you don’t know how to pass or what they want from you. There doesn’t seem to be a point to this, but you try to think of something useful. You eye the wall desperately as if it has the answer, taking in the finely painted over cracks trying to mask the decay. Nothing more than a pretty picture…a picture!

“The…layout.” You start out slowly, peaking at him to try and gauge a reaction. Nothing you can make out with his eyes closed, as if he had not a care in the world. Maybe he didn’t. “Every public street.”

It almost seems like he hadn’t heard you or cared until his eyes open abruptly and you can’t hold back a flinch. But he doesn’t move just jerks his head toward the small table.

“Draw it.”

There’s no point in telling him you don’t have paper or that you can’t draw, you simply take your pillow and strip off the case. A quick scan of the practically barren room reveals nothing to write with but before you can even open your mouth Vice is gone and back again.

This time so much closer. He looms over you then presses the pen into your hand, followed by a firm press on your back, pushing you to the desk.

“Hurry up, button, don’t got all day.”

You wince at the word but don’t hesitate. 

He hovers behind you. Literally breathing down your neck as you shakily pen out something like a map. You don’t bother with buildings unless they’re military, marking them off with X’s to signify non-entry. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re hyper aware of the pen in your hands, the texture of the coarse homemade fabric under your fingers. The sound of his boney hands scraping against the back of the chair, a silent, steady reminder. It feels like hours, but the sun hasn’t even moved position when he rips the cloth from under your hands the minute you finish. 

“Good job.”

It sounds mocking and probably is, but you can’t bring yourself to turn around or say anything, waiting for the other shoe to drop. By the time you do have the courage to turn around, the sky is dark enough that even if he was there, you thankfully wouldn’t be able to see him.

* * *

A week.

To fall into a false lull that set your teeth on edge. 

A week of actually not being hungry, mindless work wherever the bracelet assigned you, and the constant feeling of being watched. Even without actual cameras that you could see, it wasn’t paranoia. There was no doubt monsters lurked under more than just beds in the city, and you didn’t mean the ones who dropped you off in the damned settlement. 

Guards posted at every entrance, every work site, every food pick up.

Typical.

Even if you had memorized the city twice as well as before, there was no where you could go where eyes weren’t on you. But even escape was a distant dream, hazy as the fog that settled in the mornings. If you didn’t have anything new for Vice the bracelet would get passed onto someone else. 

The stagnation of it all made your itch to tear off your own skin, stuck watching every guard change, every face for something that might be useful while you wait. It feels like a fever dream you can’t break from. And it isn’t until you are debating ripping off the bracelet and damning the consequences does, he finally appears again.

“What do you got for me, button?”

This time you can’t stop the strangled shout that slips out. 

He’s on you in an instant, hand over your mouth, head tilted toward the door but there’s no footsteps and no one opens it. 

Your heart lurches into your throat all the same, the feel of the sharp edges of his bone on your skin but you know better than to pull away. Just as tense as he is until he steps back, and your shoulders sag in relief. 

Once more he is silent as he watches you. 

Waiting. 

This time you just stare back. 

But as your heart kicks up, you cave first, not missing the smirk that crosses his features. 

“The guards.” You think of their faces, imprinted in your brain like background images, constant and easily forgotten. “They use them…in civilian clothes.”

Something hits you in the face, and for a crazed moment you think you’re about to die, flinging the cloth back as he laughs lowly. 

“Add them to the map.”

It’s the same one from before except someone has drawn over the lines, creating an almost 3-D structure of the town. 

A pen hits the side of your arm, disrupting any real thoughts before they can form and you shoot the skeleton a look that he returns, making a get on with it gesture. 

This time he keeps his distance, but you can feel his gaze as you note you can’t actually hear him breathing. You try to push it from your mind, focused on recalling each face and what times you seen them, it’s only when it’s time to write the times that you hesitate.

“What?”

“I can’t write.”

He sighs, startling you even more than when he squats down beside you. 

“What do you need to write.”

“…the times.” You whisper, far too focused on not inching away. Everything in you screams to run. More so when he plucks the pen from your grip and stares at you. He looks like he’d rather do anything else but he waves a hand again.

“Get on with it.”

“Two…here.” You point to a crudely drawn stick figure, relaxing when his gaze drops to the map. “Four…two…”

It goes faster than you’d expect, and he doesn’t question anything, just waiting when you stop speaking until you realize you haven’t actually told him you’re done. You lick your lips and look away.

“That’s it.”

“Be seeing you.”

And both Vice and the map are gone.

The only indication anyone was every there is the pen rolling idly down across the uneven floor.

* * *

An explosion rocks you awake. 

Throws you to the floor, leaves you scrambling for a surface latch onto as you catch a glimpse of the city outside your window. 

For the briefest moment the sky is still and clear. The next it’s a show of fireworks. It lights up the skyline like a second sun, twice as bright and just as brutal. These flames lick at every surface and swallow the flimsy remains of everything. It’s not dissimilar to the chaos in your head. 

What was happening?

It feels like the floor is tilting under you, and it’s hard to breathe as the consequences of your actions rain down around you. You stumble to the door, unable to feel the bits of debris hitting your flesh. The buzzing under your skin is too strong for that. Loud and overpowering but not enough to drown out the screaming. 

People are running. 

Fleeing like ants whose hill has been disturbed, jostling you until you fall to your knees unable to stand under the weight of yourself. The ground feels like it will swallow you whole when it ripples at the next explosion, buildings falling in almost slow motion like bird’s feather fluttering down. 

And you can only watch it when it lands in front of you, warmth splattering your face and hands when it does. 

Blood rain.

You scramble back until you back hits a wall, using it to pull yourself up, unable to tear your gaze away from the bits of human filling your vision. 

That could be you.

It would be if you didn’t move.

Your breath and flee, tearing down the street, heading for wider areas with shorter buildings. The ground biting into your feet proof its real, proof you aren’t dead yet. You focus on that as a distraction from the sob rising in your throat. It doesn’t get you very far.

Every through the tears you see why people were running to the danger and not from.

Monsters.

Souls dance like deranged stars in a daytime sky as the chaos distracts the humans. 

Easy pickings as the bodies fall along with the dust. 

It reminds you of That Day.

The rejection of the memories is strong enough that your body reacts on instinct, away but not back. But there’s nowhere safe, another skeleton monster is front of you, blocking your way. Still, you stumble back as your Soul is ripped from your chest, like you could somehow evade them.

“No!”

“Quit strugglin’, would ya?”

You lash out anyway, shoving at the magic you can’t control and feeling it spill out. Almost like a wall to shove the monster back. He stumbles back, hat knocked clean off and you try to run again but your Soul keeps you locked in the battle, unable to move far enough away.

“Look, kid, I ain’t gonna kill ya but—”

You ignore the voice, eyeing him warily as he stands, struggling to get control of your own Soul from his grip. More explosions send the ground rioting up underneath you, making you falter as he gets closer. 

“Let go!”

You lash out with the magic again, but it’s formless, undisciplined. Useless but the rock you launch as his face isn’t.

“Knock it off!” There’s not a chance to reply, not that you would have as several bones surge up from the ground. One slices into your arm, and with a cry of shock you drop the other rock. You don’t waste time with it anymore, punching the bones as if you could make them move and feeling your Soul thrash wildly. Magic hits them with a crack but they hold firm. “Ya done?”

He looks like the skeleton who caught you the first time but larger, sharper, and more amused. But he’s far more terrifying with your Soul stuck in his hand, needle like fingers digging into it in warning. Your lip trembles a bit, but you sag against the bones.

“Good.” The bones drop and so do you. Knees hitting the disturbed ground with enough force to bruise. “Yer quick, I’ll give ya that.”

He moves faster than you would have thought for such a burly skeleton, grabbing you before you can actually hit him with the rock you snagged again. His nails dig in hard enough to cut your other arm too as he forces it from your grip then slams your Soul into your chest. You choke on nothing at the sensation, only held upright by his grip as the world falls away.

* * *

You wake to screaming.

“DID YOU KILL IT? YOU HAD ONE FUCKING JOB!”

“They ain’t dead…probably.”

You crack an eye open, a semi-familiar ceiling coming into view. Their shouting loud enough to wake you even if you were dead, you think as your head lolls tiredly in the direction of the voices. 

“IF IT IS, IT’S YOUR ASS.”

“Ain’t gonna be no one’s ass, s’wake—look.”

Your mouth feels dry and ashy, and your chest feels like it’s been punched in. There’s no point in trying to sit up so you just stare back. The taller of this one reminds you of Vice and the other one who looked like him. You close your eyes hoping it’s just doubles when a rough hand jerks you up by the front your shirt.

“NO. GET UP. YOU HAVE WORK TO DO.”

“The city is gone—how—” you cut off, sitting up with suddenly clarity, heart in your throat as your gaze shoots to your wrist. Blissfully bare if not for the scabbing over pin pricks. You breathe out a sigh of relief even as you’re forcibly hauled up and set on your feet.

“OBVIOUSLY YOU ARE GOING TO ANOTHER CITY.” He releases you to glare at the other skeleton. “SHADE IS AN IDIOT BECAUSE THIS HUMAN IS CLEARLY A FUCKING MORON.”

“Ain’t my call, ask if I give a fuck.” A hand on your back throws you into the shorter skeleton, who catches you easily. Hand around your waist and grinning at you smugly. You tense but don’t pull away, and his grin widens. “And I dunno, Cap, seems like they ain’t all that stupid.”

“JUST GO DROP IT OFF BEFORE SOMEONE SEES IT, THIS IS THEIR PROBLEM NOT MINE.”

The skeleton gives a casual salute, moving his mouth to your ear. “Aye, just relax lil ‘B, he’s all bark an’ no bite.”

“WHY YOU LITTLE—”

The bone that launches towards your faces vanishes, as does the room around you. The melding of colors and sounds that makes your ears pop and your eyes water. There’s no urge to vomit this time but your head is pounding when he releases you. A faint glow of magic surrounding you.

“Can’t have ya chucking up ’round here.”

He healed you, you realize both disturbed at the notion and grudgingly thankful. Unlike Vice he waits until you orient yourself, taking in a room much like the Red’s except in Blue. These floors are plush, and your bare feet sink into them gratefully just as you stomach falls. The urge to be sick rising for another reason. 

“I can’t be here.” You try to keep your voice even, but the skeleton just shrugs though he doesn’t leave, eyes flicking across whatever expression your face is making. You can’t school it. “No. I can’t—just sell me. I _can’t_ be in Blue—”

“Look, ain’t my problem, ya don’t like it? Take it up with, Vice.” 

He tips his hat like he’s done you a favor and he’s gone before you can even attempt to jump on him and follow him. 

Swallowing the bile, you make it to the desk. 

An actual desk.

Where you remember they keep the newspaper. Every Blue city had one. It would be impossible. Impossible for him to know. He couldn’t. They couldn’t. There were no records just—you practically shred the paper flipping through the pages to the ‘Wanted’ section—your thrice damned picture in black and white staring back at you.

“ _Fuck._ ”

There's nothing for it. 

You can't leave the room until Vice comes, and who knows when that will be. Your mind is running a hundred miles an hour, newspaper crushed in your hand as if it would make it less real. If he did come would he even let you leave? Did he know? He had to. It was too much a coincidence otherwise but if he didn't know—

The door clicks, halting your train of thought as several Blue soldiers step in. 

"...fuck."

You only hold the vomit long enough to make sure you can hit their feet as they clamp the shackles around your wrists, dragging you out of the room with curses you can only sympathize with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnd here's a [link](https://howwhenwhatwherewho.tumblr.com/post/618100998382223360/mafia-fic-skelleton-notes) to some info on this version of these skellies.


	3. Chapter III

You’ll give the Blue this much; even their interrogation rooms spic and span. Not that’d you’d ever had the pleasure of being in one before monsters emerged. Still, smooth, pristine walls a white painted over the coarse concrete to make it look pretty. You feel your lips twitch, it could be a metaphor for the city.

“Find something funny?”

“Yes.”

For a second there’s a surprised pause before you feel the gun at the back of your head dig in deeper. If it had an edge sharp enough, it would be embedded in your skin. 

“Then enlighten us.”

“The walls are painted pretty just like your city.”

“Our city. You were a…citizen once.”

Bait.

Copper fills you mouth but you don’t rise to it, just nod slow and even. You get the gratification of the faintest sigh before he leans forward placatingly, theatrics and drama, his eyes are hard even if his expression is pitying.

“We know it wasn’t your choice. Monsters had you. And after yo—their last attack we installed cameras, you see, a necessary precaution.”

Nothing he said covered the slip up. 

You were dead.

They’d try to milk you but then you were carrion, and they wanted you to know it.

It takes you only a minute, staring hard at the smooth wooden table, seeing faces flash througb your mind before you meet his gaze.

“You’re right.” He grins but you continue before he can ask more stupid questions. “They stole me in the…attack. I’m just a slave but I could be yours.”

It’s your turn to grin a bit as his lips twist down, realizing what you’re doing. You look away to school your expression, the gun being pressed a bit deeper. If he didn’t take the deal you were dead. If he did you were probably still dead, but it bought you time. There was no busting out of the room but…

“I was in the Red settlement.” 

You offer, careful with the words but there’s no doubt the Blues know of it. A peek up through your lashes and you see the expression of utter rage cross his features before he speaks, wiping his expression clean by the time you fully look up. Blunt or not, now you can feel the faintest trickle of warmth on the back of your head. It takes effort not to pull away. 

Pain means you’re alive.

“Then you were the cause.”

You nod.

“Do they plan to do it here?”

“I don’t know.”

Honesty. A lie and he’d shoot you at that very moment.

“If we shoot you, they can’t do anything.”

But he hasn’t yet. Still your heart skips a beat, hands clamming up and lips drying. You lick them nervously. 

“They had a bracelet.”

Nothing outright but an implication. He just had to take the bait. The chair shrieks across the floor as he storms out then your face is slammed into the table without warning. If you hadn’t been watching him leave, you’ve no doubt your nose would have broken. Instead you can feel the bruise forming, blood filling your mouth as your teeth sink into your cheek. You can’t actually stop the grunt of pain, but you do swallow the blood. If you gave them a reason to hit harder, they would. 

The guard keeps you pinned, and you try to stay lax. You can’t break. They have to break first, but it only takes two minutes for your legs to start trembling. Less for your heart to kick up into a frenzy. You swear you can hear the sound of every swish of fabric along with the pump of blood in your own veins. A deafening orchestra before the door bangs open. Instinctively you flinch but a hand shoves you harder into the table.

“You will go back with them. Pretend you were never caught and feed them false information.”

With pain staking effort you nod against the table.

* * *

Luck.

Pure unfiltered luck is the only reason Vice doesn’t show up right after. True to form he left you alone until he’s decided enough time has passed and you might have something useful. It’s enough that you can hide the bruising with makeup, not something you’d thought you’d ever see again. 

But that’s far as if had extended. 

His hand around your throat is telling you that much. 

Your feet kick for purchase, barely enough as he thumbs at the coverup like he wasn’t seconds away from murdering you, the almost tender gesture at odds with the expression on his face. When it comes away and stains his bone, he just shakes his head and releases you, vanishing immediately after. Choking you reach for the door. Cameras or not you can at least try to run before—

The edge of the door nearly takes your fingers off as it’s slammed shut.

You spin and lash out violently, but a skeleton catches your hands, pinning them against your chest with enough force to bruise and that’s when you notice this one is new. He looks like Vice. If Vice had rabies.

“Wouldn’t do that.”

“You got caught.”

There’s no hesitation when you speak, words shaky but fast. “Cameras! They have cameras.”

“…that so?”

“Yes. They want me to—” your words blend into a bit of blubbering, unable to tear your gaze away from the skeleton in front of you and the sharp bone in his hand needling into your throat. 

“I can guess.” The scent of smoke fills the rooms, choking you all the more as you fight every impulse to attack back. You’d be dead before you blinked. But…you weren’t yet. The knowledge evens your breathing a bit, allowing you to at least look anywhere but at the skeleton far too close for comfort. “Way I see it, got two choices here, button. Killing you now or you tell them we think you’re working for us but you’re really working for them but…”

He trails off expectantly, and you close your eyes against all of it, the words falling easily from your lips. “But I’m working for you.”

“Yup.” He laughs a little but you keep your eyes shut. “Ease up.”

For a minute you think he’s talking to you, peeling your eyes open but he is looking at the skeleton pinning you. For several long moments the skeleton seems like he is going to ignore Vice and stab you anyway before finally he steps back. The bone gone like it was never there in the first place, a small trickle of blood the only reminder. 

“See you around.” You sag against the door, tensing when his voice pipes up again. “Oh, and button? Next time you fuck up, Rabids the only one who’ll be visiting.”

Vice leaves first while the other waits—making a point—before he too is gone, leaving you alone but breathing.

You’re breathing.

Bleeding but breathing.

You absently put a hand to the new wound as you make your way to the bed, burying your face in the plush mattress and ruining it with your tears but blissfully hidden from the cameras gaze.

* * *

“The pick up will be—”

You tune it out. 

You have to.

Humans you could fool, if a monster checked you? You were lucky the Blues hadn’t thought to send one of theirs. No point in focusing on things not happening, you just need to focus on the bead of sweat on his upper lip as he talks. The sound of your own heavy breathing blocking out the actual words his lips are forming. 

When he’s done you nod. 

They escort you out, always a prisoner’s march but down fancier corridors than a jail cells, and leave you.

Like bait in a trap.

You stare at the cobble streets blankly then at the stores. 

It’s a different era. 

Ice-cream, shoes, movies, all of it lines the sides of the paved roads. No cars, those are reserved even in Blue territory but bikes and scooters sway by. The image overlaps in your head. Your face is on the kids skipping by. Your stomach lurches but you walk toward the ice-cream shop anyway.

You’ve nothing better to do except eat.

Your bandages on your head and neck throb in time with each step.

* * *

“A raid in the Deadzone on the—”

You focus on the way his eyes are simple lights. Maybe not simple but magic, and almost fuzzy at the edges. You don’t tune him out but try to part and parcel each bit of information. What twists and bends. How to present it. When to present it. The best words to use.

There’s the faintest twitch in your eye as you repeat it back to him, word for word. Sluggish and slow compared to your heart racing. It never stops anymore, a constant dull throb you can’t seem to ignore. 

It takes you almost ten minutes to realize the eyes you were staring into are gone. There’s only afterimages from where the skeleton had stood. 

You turn to the darkening sky, blinking away the faded orange from your vision.

Tomorrow.

You’d tell the Blue’s…something. Tomorrow.

Because you have tomorrow.

* * *

_“Moving cities—”_

_“Guards at—”_

_“The Reds and Greys—”_

_“Two new monster—”_

“Are you even listening?!”

You raise your head, surprised to see a human in front of you for a minute. So, surprised you actually frown. The room is dim and unfamiliar. This isn’t an interrogation but an office. Smooth wooden walls and sleek metal chairs. Your tongue feels heavy and your eyes refuse to focus on him for long, the edges of him blurring and melding into the surroundings. 

“…yes.”

The man sighs but waves you off. “Fuck this up and you’re dead.”

Right.

Because you weren’t dead.

Yet.

* * *

“What’s the word, button?”

“North point. There’s…” you struggle to remember, there were words you couldn’t say. Words you shouldn’t say. Your mind more cluttered than the alley you’re standing in. A breath of smoke in your face. A quiet reminder he’s there and you’re running out of time. “A rally. Near the border, everyone will be there. Even the Reds.”

“That so?”

Your heart flutters like a caged bird, erratic, frantic but relatively silent against the humming in your ears as you lean against the wall. There is no reason to try to fake confidence when you have none. 

“It’s so.”

But is it? You can’t remember, and even his image blurs like a mirage against the sunset as if you’d be so lucky.

“…be seeing you.”

A small nod. You can’t trust yourself to speak, afraid of what might give you away, and you can feel his eyes boring holes into you. It’s like thousands of ants on your skin, eating away at the rotting pieces left of you.

Then he’s gone.

You sag heavier against the wall and think.

Of the bun for breakfast.

Of the sun on your skin.

Of the smooth walls digging into your skin.

Of your heart still beating.

It’s enough to get you out of the alley and back onto the streets as if you’d never made the detour in the first place.

* * *

The gunfire sounds like thunder but the bullets are like hail.

They rip apart the picturesque shops at the edge of the city, like wings off a butterfly. The scene is so similar to every single one before it, you have a hard time believing its reality until shrapnel digs into your calf. It drags you down on bended knee as if in reverence to the chaos before your brain finally engages. 

You try to recall everything leading up to this point but all you remember is—

Nothing. 

The days blurred into a mindless, senseless thing of soft comforters, warm food, skeletons that pretended to be human and humans who looked too much like monsters. But there they both are. 

And it’s true chaos. 

Complete with dust in the air, screams, magic whipping across streets, buildings standing strangely untouched as the fight only takes place surround the breach. It’s impossible to do more than stare at the mess you’d made before you catch sight of the portion of the city wall the monsters had ripped to shreds. 

Freedom. 

Your brain finally remembers not only how to function but how to move, spurring you with single-mindedness towards the chaos and the hole. There’s no finesse or dodging just a straight run. No one is looking for you this time, you’re sure of that. 

The metal in your leg is deeper than you’d thought. A snail trail behind you, forcing you to half drag it as you make you way across the would-be battlefield. A target if anyone cared to aim but the Blues and Monsters are wrapped in themselves and you’re wrapped in watching them, ensuring you can flee. 

It’s the only reason you see the stupid striped shirt.

Followed by the monster kid wearing it. 

The gun held in their tail as they take aim.

The handler is not far behind, their Soul in her hands. 

Across you can see the exact moment the monster the kid is aiming for makes a decision.

Because you make one too.

You’re closer to the handler, who is too focused on containing the Soul without crushing it to care about you stumbling behind them. You’re just another casualty. Biting straight through your lip you rip out the piece of debris from your leg. It only takes four more steps to reach them and one good swing to shove it into the woman’s throat. The tears make it hard to see but the Soul falls back into the kid’s chest with ease, their expression horrified as they turn to you. There is no time to do anything but scoop them up and attempt to run.

Your leg gives out almost immediately, but you stubbornly walk on your knees, gaze fixed on the breach again. 

There’s still Freedom.

And both of you are still alive.

“Let me go!”

“No.”

“My mom—”

You know they don’t mean the handler and you don’t have time to mince words. “Is probably dead. Stay still!” 

Their struggling almost makes you fall but the words keep you from vomiting and them from moving as you struggle back to your feet. Either no one had seen, or no one had gotten to you fast enough. 

You had time.

You blink rapidly to try and clear your vision as their tail wraps tightly around your waist. 

This time you can’t stop the overlap. 

That Day is all you can see. 

It’s all you hear. 

You don’t know if you’re walking or not anymore. It sounds like someone is screaming right before pain erupts along your side, knocking you over completely. The kid falls from your arms, crashing across the cement as you go do down. They are up before you, tail tugging at your wrist impatiently.

“Run!” 

It’s supposed to be a shout, but it comes out as a pain gasp, hand dully covering your side as if it will stop more than the blood flow. 

“No!”

It’s too familiar.

Too similar. 

But you aren’t strong enough to call their Soul to you and force them the way it had been done to you. Spots dot the edges of your vision, catching only glimpses of human hands hoisting the monster child up before you are swallowed up by the spots entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a [link](https://howwhenwhatwherewho.tumblr.com/post/618578208452952064/if-you-arent-in-overplaylist-part-1) to the playlist I made because why not?


	4. Chapter IV

Something hard is against your lips, and you try to open them in protest. A sharp tingle running through your mouth as the hard ball hits the back of your throat. You gag, nearly choking before reflex has you swallowing it whole. The tingle spreads. Down to your toes and fingertips, along your back so until you can feel the cold press of the floor through your ruined clothes.

“ _Please_...wake up.”

The voice is soft, and nervous. It triggers your most recent memories with startling clarity. Your body shoots up, ready to move, to run before your eyes can even adjust to the disgustingly familiar barren walls. The cot you’re in so familiar, you have trouble remembering if you’d ever left it all those months ago. 

But back then your roommate hadn’t been a tiny monster kid.

“You’re not dead!”

“No, no, no! _I told you to run._ ”

“I wasn’t going to leave you—”

“And now you can’t leave at all!” You explode, words ripping from your lips hoarsely. Their eyes fill but you can’t find it in you to take them back. Because you’re back in this thrice damned city, probably worst off than you’d ever been before. Your own eyes begin to fill too, throat tightening until you can’t stand it anymore. You reach out and yanked the kid into your arms, crushing them against you. It takes a minute for you to trust yourself to speak. “I’m sorry.”

You’re not even sure it’s the kid you’re apologizing too but when you’ve both stopped crying you finally note the lack of pain. 

“I gave you my candy.”

You grit your teeth, biting backs words of frustration but recall doing the same stupid shit when you had escaped. The strange urge to laugh is bubbling, along with the urge to vomit and it takes everything to spit out the words. “Thank you.”

The kid beams like you both aren’t in the barracks. Like you both don’t know what is about to happen. You think you hate them just a little bit. Grinding your teeth, you look away. 

A plan.

You needed a plan.

Closing your eyes, you try to think. But there’s no more time, the sound of footsteps hits your ears like the beating of a drum, louder and louder until it’s the thrumming of your own pulse.  
Still you keep your eyes shut. 

They’d kept both of you alive.

They’d kept _both of you alive._

The lock turns like countdown. Each click of the tumbler in time with your quickening heartbeat. The kid would know nothing, knew nothing. But you did. You breathe out heavily. Weighing your options like you have any. If you’re quick it won’t hurt and then they’d have nothing, or they’d just kill you too and still have nothing. 

It’s a win-win.

You squeeze your eyes shut tighter, the jangle of keys and scrape of metal screaming at you to hurry up. To just do it. You have to. There’s a tail on your cheek, snapping you out of your thoughts and forcing you to meet their gaze. And for a minute you can’t breathe. You’d almost forgotten. Forgotten that their kindness didn’t make them stupid, they lived here too. 

“I don’t want to hurt. Please.”

It’s a tiny thing. 

A small Soul, floating between you two as the gate creaked wildly open, if you didn’t hurry they’d stop you. 

Seconds. 

And you knew what your choice was. 

Grimacing you shoved at their Soul, pushing it back into their chest but they fought you. The two of you rolling around the cell as the guards began to reach for you.

“They’ll make it hurt!”

“I can’t!”

“I’m scared!”

What were you doing?

What the actual fuck were you doing?

“…me too.”

The words are met with a whimper as you’re both picked up. It feels like the room is closing around you, ready to crush you into dust and you wish it would. But it doesn’t. Instead you allow your limp body to be dragged without a fight. 

Save your energy.

New plan. 

Neither of you is dead yet.

* * *

The room is sparsely furnished for a Blue city. 

But that isn’t surprising, processing rooms were always simple. No chance for the new slaves to find weapons. What is surprising is the familiar gleam of a red bracelets in the room and the amount of firepower trained on you. 

“Sit.”

You do, and it’s the only chair in the room. Broken and battered, a card tables chair. It looks and feels a lot like you do as the small red lights all aim across your chest but you keep your gaze on the woman standing in front of you.

“What’s your name?”

Breathing out heavily through your nose you don’t answer. It isn’t a question that matters but her fist hits your cheek so rapidly you barely see it, only feeling the sting of your split lip, and swelling cheek after. Still you can’t answer, not until she switches tactics, rapid and easy.

“Kill the monst—”

“I don’t remember.”

She eyes you for a long second then nods, your shoulders loosen, and you finally tear your gaze away to count the others in the room. A picture is forming in your head. They borrowed from the Red, not unusual but it means something that the Red are in this room and not somewhere else. But the ringing in your ears won’t let you remember why this is important. Things you’d hidden, bits of information you’d stolen. 

Bait.

There are two lives now. 

Yours and the kids.

“Who do you work for?”

“I don’t know.”

This time you see her coming. She makes sure you can, stepping up toward you and lifting her boot. You make the mistake of tensing when it comes down, the pain sending shockwaves up from your foot until they hit your throat. You’re screaming before you can stop yourself but the pain eases into a dull ache quickly. 

It’s only broken. 

You try to focus on something else. The red on her shirt, blood that isn’t yours. The dust on her shoulders, still such a strong scent it clogs your nose. This is important. Why? You can’t think properly around the pain, trying to focus on her words. Her voice. 

Why aren’t you dead?

“Whose side are you on?”

She steps back and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Revealing a still dripping cut. Bleeding. She’s still bleeding. 

Focus.

She’s bleeding. The Reds are there. Her words slog through your brain, a bitter after taste of candy making you gag as bits of clarity hit you. Of humans who masquerade as monsters and monsters who sometimes match their appearance. Of the kid who was just like you and fucked off by both. An endless cycle of de ja vu with different heads, a hydra that wouldn’t die. Of blood that meant battles weren’t over. 

They were still fighting.

You don’t hesitate. 

“Mine.”

The bullet rips through your arm and you can’t even scream. The pain chokes you, vision blurring until water hits your face. The hazy image of the small monster before you, the tiny dangerous dots on them now and you aren’t sure if its water running down your cheeks or tears. 

“You have one minute.”

A sob catches in your throat as you blink the water and salt away, but the pain grounds you. Gives you more time to stall. Right up until the kid screams, a human hand squeezing around their Soul. You try to drown it out, letting your own internal screams be louder. 

More time.

“Ten, nine—"

“I don’t know!”

In your silence and you can hear the scuffle of feet before the kid is in front of you. Too close, sobbing quietly and you can hear the safety unlatching like you’re in an echo chamber. 

Out of time. 

“I don’t! They never told me!”

“…kill it.”

“The Dreemurr mafia!” The words tumble out, and once you start you can’t stop. “They conned me. Put me here and I told them whatever they wanted to hear. They knew I was working for you…so I told them. I told them how we did it last time.” 

Too much, you’d said too much, but you were out of time. Even as the dust thickened in the air, monsters or from the shaking walls. It didn’t matter anyway.

None of you have any time left.

Stall.

You’re still breathing.

The kids still breathing.

“From before?”

“Here and the Red city.”

“Who told you how?!”

“Doesn’t matter. I told them how and then I fed you both bullshit because you can kill each other till there’s nothing left and the world ends for all I fucking care.”  
Her own gun levels with you but her gaze is distracted, the words hitting right before the sound of screams begins. An encore to the door being torn off its hinges as the world around you starts to collapse. Literally. 

“They’ve reached us, they’re in the halls!”

A piece of the ceiling caves as the dots and all the Reds file out, punctuation to the end of the interrogation. The tang of magic in the air mixing with the scent of gasoline and dust. You pull the kid to you, shielding them as you stumble up ignoring the woman as you make your way to the exit. 

That Day wasn’t for nothing if you kept this one alive. 

The worst she could do is waste another bullet on you. Still you flinch when it goes off, freezing in place as a small cry slips out until you realize there’s no pain. It takes another minute before you move, the warmth tickling your bare feet is sticky and the scent familiar. 

“Don’t look.”

The kid nods, wrapping themselves around you as you straighten, using their tail to attach like a monkey while you peek behind you. 

A skeleton.

You stumble back, forgetting your foot entirely for one second until you fall to your knees. You’ve no doubt what’s coming, his expression is murderous and your Soul hovers between you both. Though your brain screams you’re not dead, yet you can feel the tiny body around you like a noose. 

“Hand ‘em over.”

“My arm, I can’t. Just take them. There’s more in the—”

“The fuck you talkin’ ‘bout?”

“No! Don’t touch me!” The kid cuts you both off lashing out at the burly skeleton with his own magic then wrapping around it around your Soul. It feels strange and you struggle until you feel them flinch in your arms. You still, allowing the foreign feeling the wash over you. You can’t fight it; you focus on other threats. Like the skeleton in front of you, the screams behind you and the walls cracking under the sheer force of the explosions. 

“Go with him. I can’t—”

“No!”

_“Oh for fucks sake.”_

The skeleton grabs both your arms and the sounds of battle die, your last image is the room collapsing into dust before it was all gone as if it’d never happened in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took forever to update, I apologize, writing has been really hard to me lately but I'm going to keep trying! So...have a chapter? And [heres a bit](https://howwhenwhatwherewho.tumblr.com/post/632617556104085504/if-you-arent-in-over-your-headmafiasfactions) about the human factions, some of this may have been hinted or explicitly stated in other chapters and some has not.


End file.
